You now have the six parts of a free game. The first three are about money: the few who pay for everyone, the coin that is not money, and the wait you can pay to skip.
The chance
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The return
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The count
The other three: the chest, which sells a chance and not a prize. The return, which is the streak, the energy bar and the pass. And the count, which is the studio's screen of numbers, and the offers it makes from them.
The return
vsvs
The chance
vsvs
The coin
A headline says a game has added a streak shield you can buy for 1.99 dollars. Which part is that mostly about?
The return. A shield protects a streak, and a streak is there to bring you back.
Right. It is priced in money, but the thing being sold is a day off from the calendar. The headline is about the return, and the money is how the return is charged for.
The chance. A shield is a kind of chest.
Not yet. A shield is not random. You pay 1.99 and you get a shield, every time. A chest would be a chance at a shield.
The coin. It has a price.
Not yet. Most things in a free game have a price. What makes this one interesting is what it protects, and that is the streak.
The headline→Which part moved→Which number it was aimed at
A games headline usually names one part. But the parts are joined, so a change to one is made to move a number on the studio's screen. To read a headline, ask two things. Which part moved? And which number was the studio watching when it moved it?
These headlines are made up, but each is the kind of thing that gets reported. Which part of the game is each one about?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 6
Shooter raises the price of its coin bundles by a tenth in Europe.
Country orders games to print chest odds on the shop screen.
Puzzle game cuts the wait for a new life from 30 minutes to 20.
Racing game's new season pass has 120 levels, up from 100.
Football game switches off paid card packs in Belgium.
Studio's yearly report says fewer than 3 in 100 players paid.
Shooter raises the price of its coin bundles by a tenth in Europe. → Money
Not yet. Money. The coin is how dollars enter the game, and a bundle price is the money part in its plainest form.
Country orders games to print chest odds on the shop screen. → Chance
Not yet. Chance. Odds are the rule of the draw, and a law about printing them is a law about the chest.
Puzzle game cuts the wait for a new life from 30 minutes to 20. → Coming back
Not yet. Coming back. The life timer sets how often a player returns, and shortening it is a change to the return loop.
Racing game's new season pass has 120 levels, up from 100. → Coming back
Not yet. Coming back. Twenty more levels is twenty more hours the pass asks for across the season, and hours are the return.
Football game switches off paid card packs in Belgium. → Chance
Not yet. Chance. A card pack is a chest by another name, and the Belgian rule is about paying for a chance.
Studio's yearly report says fewer than 3 in 100 players paid. → Money
Not yet. Money. The share of players who pay is the first fact of the money part: a few pay for everyone.
Money
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Chance
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Coming back
Right. A price or a share of payers is money. Odds, packs and chests are chance. Timers, streaks and passes are coming back. Most headlines fit one pile once you ask what actually changed.
Slide the marker to how many people in the world play video games, in billions, as counted in 2023.
Slide the marker to your guess, then lock it. Nothing is scored.
123
you said · 0 billion people
actually · 3.4 billion people
0 billion people4 billion people8 billion people
12 billion2 billion people
24 billion4 billion people
3Everyone alive8 billion people
People who play video games, in billions: —
More than four in every ten people alive, and most of them on a phone. The six parts of this course are running in a very large share of the world's pockets, and most of the people carrying them have never seen the parts named.
201640 dollars, everyone once
↓→
2022free, a pass and a shop
One real case. A shooter sold for 40 dollars in 2016: everyone paid once, and there was nothing to come back for. In 2022 its sequel launched free, with a season pass and a shop. Before, every player paid once. Now most players pay nothing and a few pay a lot. So the game had to build the other parts.
Put in order what a game adds when it goes from a price at the door to free.
Tap them in order, first to last.
Free door→A coin→A shop and a pass→Reasons to return→Watched and tuned
Right. The price goes first, and then everything this course described has to be built, because a free game earns nothing at the door. The last step never ends: the numbers are watched from the day it launches.
New pass
↓→
Hours playedup 40 in 100
↓→
Paid by?
A headline says a studio's free shooter saw players play 40 per cent more hours after its new pass. Which number moved, and who paid for it?
The money number moved, and players paid for it in dollars.
Not yet. The headline says hours, not dollars. The pass may bring money later, but what it moved first was time, and time is the return part.
The chance number moved. A pass is a kind of chest.
Not yet. A pass has no draw in it. Every level is fixed, and every hour buys the same level. Nothing about it is chance.
The hours number moved, and players paid for it in time.
Right. The pass turned hours into something owed, and the hours went up. The studio's report calls it engagement; the course calls it the return, paid in time.
Now60 dollars at the door
↓→
Nextfree
A game you have paid 60 dollars for announces that its next version will be free to download. Using the six parts, what is most likely to appear in it?
A coin sold in bundles, a shop, a pass, and timers or streaks that bring you back.
Right. A free door earns nothing, so the other five parts have to do the earning. None of them is a sign of a bad game. They are what free means.
A higher price on the game itself.
Not yet. The price on the game is going to zero; that is the announcement. What rises is the price of things inside it.
Fewer players, because free games are worse.
Not yet. Free games usually have far more players, because nothing stops anyone trying. The six parts exist because most of those players will never pay.
Lesson complete
A free game is six parts, every headline about one moves one of them, and a number was watching.